Wingmark
by LynnAgate
Summary: Max and Alec pick up where they left off in "Eight Days," searching for the meaning behind Max's runes as they push closer to discovering their destiny. M. Disclaimer: Dark Angel is owned by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee. For entertainment purposes only.
1. 8 Months Ago: Special Delivery

_Her limbs heavy with sedation, Max squirmed on the metal table, her ankles and wrists restrained in canvas straps with metal buckles. She could hear the steady, slightly quicker beeping of her heart monitor. Just over her pregnant belly, she could see Alec leaning, deflated, against the wall to which he'd been tied. His cuffs were much sturdier than hers, his sedation much heavier – probably because they sensed he would do anything within his power to protect his woman and child. He watched Max as she wiggled her wrists against her restraints. She gently reached the tips of her fingers toward her stomach, surprise tears welling in her eyes. She had put all of her trust in him._

 _She felt White's presence behind her, his dark, polluted energy somehow seeping into the air around him. Max tried to mentally prepare herself for what was about to happen – but how does one prepare for something like this? The glint of fluorescent light against the gun caught Alec's attention, and he fidgeted with agitation, as if he needed to move but lacked the motor function to do so. She rationalized that the sedatives were doing to him what they'd been doing to her._

 _She remembered this from her vision. White was standing in the room, right behind her, about to grab her. About to shoot her. In the vision, he appeared disgusted; he felt he was doing righteous work by eliminating the X series, doing the right thing by completing the breeding cult's task. Eliminate 'The One.'_

 _Max whimpered, panic setting in. Her heart sped up, the heart monitor beeping erratically. Her eyes were wide, filled with uncertainty and unshed tears as she imagined what might happen. It would only take a split second for White to pull the trigger and end their lives. She looked to Alec, pleading with him to do something. To do anything. To save them. This wasn't how it was supposed to be._

 _White's sinister glare focused on the mass on the floor next to Alec. "You did me a favor, really."_

 _Alec squinted against his helplessness as if trying to wake from a nightmare. White was going to kill their baby, Max, and Alec – in that order, likely. He clenched his jaw once. Twice._

 _Smugly, White pointed the gun at Max's stomach. "Now she cannot deliver," he said simply, his finger rubbing against the trigger._

 _Max took a deep breath and tried to brace herself. She squeezed her eyes shut as a loud shot rang out, and everything turned red._

* * *

Chapter 1: Eight Months Ago

Alec and Max huddled around the laptop at the airfield in Cairo, staring at Dix on the screen. He looked even more pale than usual, but was excited to give them some news.

"The block of text on her left clavicle," Dix began, looking to his left, presumably at another monitor. "Logan said Dr. Adair translated that. It means 'She Will Deliver.' Not sure what 'She Will Deliver' means, though."

Max looked down toward her left clavicle but couldn't see the runes from that angle. She jerked her chin up to Alec and caught him trying to make sense of the text in question. Suddenly knowing what it meant did nothing to help them read the language, however. He placed a reassuring hand on her arm.

"Maybe a package of something important? Like a special scroll delivery," Alec tried. After an eighteen hour flight, he was exhausted and in need of some rest. They both were.

Max scoffed. "That's stupid. Sandeman and a thousand-year-old breeding cult couldn't have prophesied I'd get a job at Jam Pony, O Great One."

Alec pressed his lips together, remembering his vision in the temple, remembering her description of the operating room vision. "Maybe you'll deliver a child," he said. It was bittersweet, thinking about that. He didn't want to make their hypothetical child White's target. He didn't want that to be true, but he couldn't deny that the feeling of having a family with Max made him feel calm, right. Made him feel like home.

"Leave it to you to say the awkward thing we're all thinking," Max mumbled.

Dix piped up. "Maybe it's biblical. Something you'll deliver us unto."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." Max folded her arms. "Maybe if we can translate the rest, we'll know what the hell it all means."

"Then you guys better head out. The plane for Athens leaves in fifteen minutes, and I just secured two seats on it."

"Thanks," Max and Alec said in unison.

"Yell at me when you get there. I'll have more information on Dr. Adair."

Max chuckled. Alec looked at her questioningly while closing the laptop. "Holler at me," she informed. "He must have failed Common Verbal Usage."

Alec swung the laptop under his arm, grabbed Max's hand, and headed inside toward the ticket counter. "Hey, Maxie, ever been part of the mile-high club?"

* * *

"Ugh, is that Dr. Adair?" Dix asked, his voice sounding disgusted. Max held the laptop and stood next to Alec, who twisted the tiny webcam attachment back to his own face.

"Yep," he said. He pinched the webcam between his fingers and spun it around to show Dix the carnage of the room.

Dr. Adair's office was ground zero for a small bomb, a bomb with a singular purpose: take out Dr. Adair. The room was in disarray – partially burnt furniture, singed papers and books, and thousands of little, bloody pieces of Dr. Adair herself. It was gruesome, and no matter how many training scenarios the X5s experienced with entrails, it didn't seem to get any easier to see.

"And here," Alec said, pointing the camera to the corner. "And here," he continued, pointing the camera to some bookshelves. Alec looked up and used his telescopic vision to zoom into the ceiling. He snapped the camera upward. "And there." Angling the camera back to his face, Alec nodded solemnly. "Looks like someone got to her before we did."

Dix cleared his throat from the other end. "Any idea who did this?"

"Has to be White," Max said.

"He always seems to be one step ahead of us," added Alec. "I mean, technically, we followed him here, so how could he have known who we were coming here to see?"

Max let the question hang in the air as she thought about it. Something was nagging at her subconscious. Mentally, she replayed the conversation between her, Logan and Alec. Alec had been pretty rude in questioning whether or not Logan had vetted the woman before contacting her and giving her sensitive information. And Logan's response was defensive to the point where he was offended that Alec would even suggest he had not done his homework when it came to internet security. If no one else contacted Dr. Adair, then how did White know about her?

"Max, you want me to call Logan and see if he can get us another contact?"

Alec turned to face her. He understood that involving Logan again – at this point – would most likely end in trouble for the older man. He hadn't wanted to be right about the cyber journalist essentially creating a traceable link to the only woman whom might be able to read the text on Max's skin. If Logan put out any more feelers, they would likely reach out and press a target onto their backs. "I don't think that's a good idea," he finally said.

"We do need a new contact," Max argued.

"Then I guess I'm glad I know a guy."

"Of course you do."

"And he's already here," Alec added.

"Guys, one more thing," Dix interjected, trying to find one of them in the webcam's view.

Alec turned the camera to Max and himself. "Yeah."

"There was a tsunami off the coast of Sumatra while you were in the air." At their surprised faces, he continued. "Smaller in nature, most of the damage was done to structures; very little loss of life." He paused for a moment, seeming to carefully consider his next words. "Are all your runes still there?"

"We'll get back to you on that," Alec answered, looking as though now it was Dix who said the awkward thing they were all thinking.

* * *

Max and Alec made their way down to the back bedroom of _The Anastasia_ , Lydecker's boat, and set their duffels down on the bed. The room was Spartan, which didn't surprise the transgenics, considering the vessel's owner. There was a small nightstand next to one side of the bed, and behind the head of the bed was a small bookshelf built into the wall.

Max was already smiling at Alec's description of his apparent mental connection to her. "So, what, you can just turn it on and see where I am?"

Alec set the closed laptop on the small nightstand and slipped off his jacket. "I don't know how it works. Or when. Or why. If there is even a limit. I concentrate, and then you sort of come into view."

"So if I were to go outside and take a dive into the water, you'd be able to see me do it?" Max sat on the bed and untied her boot. She slipped it off and craned her neck to see Alec's face.

"Yeah, something like that. I just don't know how to control it." He watched as she untied and removed her other boot. "You wanna test it? You go into the other room and mouth something. A movie quote or something. See if I can read your lips."

Hopping up onto her feet, Max agreed. "I have one already." She disappeared down the hallway and into one of the front rooms.

Alec sat with his back against the headboard and concentrated, closing his eyes. Max came into view behind his lids, and he smiled. She looked like she was tickled by her selection.

She whispered, softer than even a transgenic whisper. "Don't let him know that you know what he thinks you don't know, you know?"

Alec smiled. " _Sneakers?_ You know that movie," he asked in his normal volume, knowing she could hear him.

"It was a funny part," Max called loudly from the other room.

"Alright. Gimme another."

The visage of Max unzipped her jacket and removed it. "Cellar door."

" _Donnie_ _Darko_ ," he answered. He was surprised that she would know anything about that movie. "When'd you see that?"

"Am I trying to stump you?" she called from the other room. "You want me to make it hard?"

Her innuendo broke his concentration completely and he opened his eyes, standing up from the bed and taking the two strides necessary to make it to the foot of the bed. Within five seconds, she was standing before him, lifting her shirt up over her head.

"I can make it hard," she promised, squeezing heavy-lidded eyes at him. She unbuttoned her jeans and slid the zipper down slowly.

Alec's eyes were glued to her hands and then her skin, and then her legs, as more and more of her skin, sprinkled with the runes, became visible to him. His mouth watered, remembering the taste of her, the way she inadvertently pulled his hair so hard he saw white behind his lids, the way her legs tightened around his neck blissfully, painfully. He felt himself harden.

She pressed her body against Alec's and took a single, nervous breath. Alec's hungry stare pulled her mouth open at the thought of being devoured, and he surged forward to start the kiss as deep as he could get, their tongues sliding languidly over each other's.

Fingering the hem of his shirt, Max broke the kiss to pull it up over his head before moving down to the button on his jeans. He helped her divest him of his pants, his erection springing out and making a tent of his boxers, and returned to her demanding mouth.

Alec slid his hands up her back and masterfully unhooked her bra. He pulled the straps forward and she let the garment fall to the floor. And suddenly, there she was, bared before him. He paused their ministrations to stare into her eyes. This woman, so undeniably intelligent, so unwaveringly loyal and good and gorgeous, stood nearly naked, brave and coy under his careful eye.

Max pulled at his arm and sat down on the bed, backing herself up to lay her head on the pillow and guide him on top of her.

On his elbow, his other hand cupping the back of her neck, he kissed her gingerly, sensually. He brought his hand forward, rubbing down her chest, up over the crest of her breast, stopping to rub his thumb against her hardening nipple on a slight detour to her hip.

Sweeping his hand inward, he pressed his fingers against the fabric of her panties at the juncture of her legs. She hummed in approval as he continued to stroke up and down, her breath coming faster and faster, the fabric between her legs getting damper with each press of his fingertips.

Despite the barrier of her underwear, he curved his finger in toward her opening, causing Max to arch her hips up. She was ready and wet, and pushed the hem of her panties down until Alec got the hint. He pulled both of her knees up and Max straightened her legs in front of him. Sliding her panties all the way up her legs until her feet slipped through the holes, Alec tossed the fabric to the side of the bed and watched in awe as she let her straight legs lower into a split, baring her completely naked center to him.

His shaft twitched at the very flexible, very stimulating visual. "Christ, Max, you're gonna kill me."

"Not if you can't get this started," Max whined, raising her calves to his hips. She squeezed her calves against him and tried to push down his boxers.

He looked down at her shins with an amused surprise, backed off the bed and slid the fabric down, Max watching every move. Crawling back onto the bed, he sat back on his ankles and pulled her hips into his lap, her core rubbing against him intimately, smearing her wetness on his length. He could smell her arousal, could see the lust in her eyes, could feel the slick heat of her center as it rubbed against his smooth skin.

His pulse raced as he bent sideways to his duffel and reached a hand inside to pull out a box of condoms. He felt her firm grip stroking him roughly and nearly backed out of reach, trying to keep his wits about him. He returned his stare to Max and held up the box, his lips smirking up on one side. He had promised her days, and he fully intended to collect on that promise.

Max smiled sweetly as he tore open the box and selected a package, then impatiently took it out of his hands, opened the packet, tossed the foil aside, and stretched the condom over him, his dick so hard and ready that he couldn't help the way his eyes rolled back with the sensation, and she couldn't help the pure satisfaction it gave her to know she had caused that rapturous look. Raking her fingers down his chest, slowing only to scrape at his nipples, Max pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

Finally, with his torso pressed against hers, Alec sank himself deep into her heat. He flexed inside of her and Max inhaled sharply, teeth grinding together to take all of him in. He wasn't still much longer - a fact for which Max was grateful, because as soon as he started moving, and as soon as she could feel his ribbed shaft and raised tip pushing against her inner walls, she met every thrust, their movements becoming faster and louder like the rumble of a growing wave, ready to crest and crash her down into blissful oblivion.

"Harder," she growled out at him, because she knew she could take it; she knew he could give her the roughness she desired; she knew that like this, their animal would take over, and that line between pain and ecstasy would disappear like footprints in wet sand.

And because she trusted him, he snapped his hips against hers, giving her everything.


	2. 8 Months Ago: Making Time

Chapter 2: 8 Months Ago

Alec followed the messy lines of Max's wavy hair as they spilled past her slender neck, over the curve of her shoulder, and down toward the middle of her back, the tiny columns of runes creating something of a curved pinstripe pattern near her waist, over the swell of her ass, and down the backs of her long, toned legs. She gently bent toward the faucet to splash some water on her face.

The small bathroom's porthole window let in enough light that when she stood up again, it silhouetted her head in a halo. His own personal angel. His own personal angel who sometimes wore fatigues and combat boots, who was a better improviser than anyone else he'd met, who had a short fuse and a stubborn streak to rival a bull's. His own personal angel who loved him, too.

Light shined on the water droplets as a couple of beads made their way down her neck and toward her breasts. He'd never been so jealous of water his whole damn life.

She smeared those droplets to dry them and turned to look at Alec, sprawled on the bed, his pupils eclipsing the hazel of his irises, and his erection lengthening. She was already feeling the slow-building throb between her legs, and when he glanced down at her sex, she felt her muscles clench and closed her eyes, tilting her head to the side, a small lightning bolt of pleasure coursing through her body.

When she opened her eyes again, he stood next to her, turned her by the shoulders so she faced the mirror, and pushed up behind her. He curled his fingers around the bulk of her hair and swept it off of her back, over her opposite shoulder.

In the mirror, she could see how transfixed he was by her shoulder. He didn't break his stare once – just leaned down and puckered against the skin at her neck. His brow twitched minutely and he closed his eyes.

"What?" Max had a niggling feeling there was a reason behind his eyebrow tick.

He sighed softly and opened his eyes, removing his lips from her shoulder. "You are missing a few runes."

She bent forward toward the mirror and tried to roll her shoulder forward to see which runes had disappeared. It was a move borne more from curiosity and less from panic.

Alec's left hand moved through the space between her waist and elbow, pulling her back to him by his gentle grasp on her waist.

Max fixed him with a soft stare in the mirror. "You think it was the tsunami, or..." She nodded toward the bed.

Alec circled his right hand around her waist, looking down to the line of her spine and stopping shy of licking his lips with hunger. He wasn't sure if those runes were there after the tsunami or not. They'd been preoccupied. But if their lovemaking was the cause of runes disappearing, they could discern that in other ways. "Only one way to find out," he said, turning her around in his embrace and leaning down to kiss her.

Rubbing her hands up his chest and circling over his shoulders, Max pushed into the kiss, the embrace, and smiled against his lips when she felt his hands cup both her cheeks and then sweep under them to pick her up by the thighs. She pulled her legs up around his waist, groaning at the feeling of his hardness at her stomach.

It took most of her willpower not to just lift herself up higher on his body and sink down onto his thick shaft. Just thinking about it made her grind her teeth in frustration and squeeze her legs tighter around his hips.

He quickly carried her the few steps' distance to the bed and fell into the soft sheets, still attached to her at the lips. He broke their kiss to smear his lips down her body, starting at just below her ear, where he caressed the tiny runes with the flat of his tongue before continuing down.

The further down he trailed, the more Max writhed under him in anticipation, anxious for the contact she desired, for some kind of completion, but all she could focus on were his lips pressing between her breasts, down the slope of her abdomen, down to her inner thigh, everywhere except the one area achingly dripping for his attention.

His warm palm slipped up her body, and in her near-crazed lust, she grabbed his hand and pulled it onto her breast. Instinctively, he massaged it, kneading it lightly before pinching her already erect nipple hard, eliciting a pained groan from her at the exact moment he pressed the tip of his skilled tongue to her clit.

With her arched back lifting off the bed, Max whined his name and was rewarded with a sharp nibble and smooth, warm swipe against her sex. She reached down unconsciously and pulled him closer by the hair, calling out his name again.

She whined again when he detached from her to reach for the condoms. "Maxie, you're having a hard time giving up control, aren't you?"

His hair was messed up on the side where she'd tried to pull him closer. She was pulsating from his ministrations thus far, and she sat with her legs slightly parted, waiting while he took for-goddamn-ever to pick a condom and sheath himself.

He paused when it was rolled on all the way, giving himself a few firm strokes at the sight of her before settling between her knees again.

She slid her hands up to his neck and pulled him toward her. "Finally. I was beginning to think you were going to just play with yourself all night."

He laughed deep and low, and Max could feel the vibrations of it where their stomachs touched. She smiled; that low rumble was amazing.

"So bossy," he said, relishing proudly in the way her eyes rolled back when he teased her opening with his tip.

Her brows tilted up, a vulnerability washing over her features, her pupils growing wider in tune with his. She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to control herself, and only then did he slide into her. She hummed unintelligibly, but approvingly.

He thrust slowly but deeply and lowered his lips to hers, suddenly enveloped in the perfection of making love to his woman, discovering her anew with every sense, discovering her nuances with combinations of plush lips on shoulders sweet from sweat, her taste coursing through his body like a stoked fire. His fingertips conversed along her skin, etching a new invisible language over the runes.

* * *

Through the closed door of the bathroom, Max heard the powerful suction sound of the toilet flushing and then the faucet running. She had pulled the sheet up over her naked form, but only out of some sense of decency. Plus, even though Alec was an endurance model X-series, she wanted to give them both time to recharge their batteries.

When the bathroom door opened, Alec slipped out and climbed on top of the sheets next to her. He settled against the pillow and Max turned onto her side to look at him.

She didn't want to say it out loud to add fuel to the fire that was his ego, but he truly was a skilled lover. They made love for hours, prolonging one another's pleasure, until her voice became raw from the screaming, and the cradle of her sex, sore and sated. He looked a little beaten up, too, with the scratch marks on his back and the little teeth marks on his chest and shoulders. But he was smiling back at her, his eyes vibrant with joy. She loved that look in his eyes.

"So," Max began. "Sandeman had you studying poetry."

Alec turned onto his side to face her and propped his head up with his hand. "Yeah. Lots of different kinds."

"Why?"

The corners of his mouth turned down for a second. "I'd like to say he's the ultimate wingman, but I think he did it because he probably wanted to hide messages in it. You know, like that guy in the S1W did."

"What kind of messages?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I have thought through them over and over, and I can't really come up with anything."

"But you remember them, though?"

He saw the spark of an idea in her eyes. "Yeah, I remember them."

She started to sit up, which made Alec think that gravity was the ultimate wingman, because the sheet slipped from her chest, revealing a little more cleavage, his marks mixed in with the runes. "Well, maybe recite them to me? Maybe something'll stand out. Maybe you were supposed to read them to me?"

She pulled the sheet up a little, sensing it would be too much of a distraction for him to recite poetry to her while she was topless. And if he recited poetry to her while she was topless, there was no telling how far they'd get before she'd drop the sheet the rest of the way and straddle him.

He sat up, too. He was excited about the possibility that she might glean something, anything, from the mystery of Sandeman having him study and memorize poetry. "Okay, first one. Robert Frost's _Fire and Ice_." He proceeded to recite the small poem.

Max pursed her lips, thinking about the words. She shook her head. "Other than the feeling of the impending apocalypse by fire or ice, I really don't get anything from that. There was the earthquake and tsunami, but I don't know if those are some kind of precursor for something bigger, or if it's just a coincidence."

"Maybe it has to do with the nature of disaster. Fire and ice are opposing extremes. Not all that predictable, but ferocious and consuming. One quick, one slow. One burns up everything in its path, one freezes everything in its place. Both destructive, though."

Max hummed thoughtfully. Several of their training courses at Manticore involved surviving extreme fire, such as the course in which the unit had to find a way out of a burning structure, or utilizing the energy of fire or extreme cold to obtain success, such as the course in which the unit had to lower their body temperatures to near-death lows by whatever means necessary so as not to be detected by the enemy's thermal infrared scanners. "Okay, next one."

Alec recited _God's Grandeur_ next.

The flowery language was like a cipher that Max tried desperately to break. "There's something kind of either precious or predatory about the Holy Ghost in there," she said, imagining it over the world, waiting for its regeneration. It wove a common thread through nature and humanity, and in that thread, Max found strength.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. There's a hope there that even though we fall, we are not beat; that if we lose, not all is lost; that we rise up again by sheer will because it is in us."

She stared at him, mouth falling open in an expression just shy of astounded. "That's very astute, Alec." She expected intelligence from him in various forms – tactical, practical, common sense – but this was something else.

The corner of his mouth twitched up as he stared past her for a moment, wondering if Ben would have the same interpretation. Was this what Hopkins had endeavored to express?

"What are you thinking," Max asked, eager to have him look into her eyes again.

The spell broken, Alec returned to her and cleared his throat. "I was thinking about Yeats' _The Second Coming._ It was one of the poems I memorized, too."

She waited for him to continue, and listened carefully as he recited it. "Wow, that's… really dark and foreboding. If I didn't already have nightmares about blood-dimmed tides and anarchy and beasts, I sure would get them now." At Alec's understanding nod, she continued. "Do you really think that that's going to happen? Blood tides and mass drownings, and each of us being picked off one by one and devoured by vultures?"

And suddenly, it seemed like a very real threat to Max. There was already the tsunami, the earthquake, maybe even more that hadn't yet been reported. What if it was all because of her and these runes and this prophesy? What if these disasters were just the tip of the catastrophic iceberg? The desolation that seemed to be looming on the horizon was suffocating her, and then she thought back to that burning cell from her regression. Would that be her final demise?

She felt Alec scoop her against his chest, pressing her closer and closer to the steady beat of his heart. He tucked her head under his chin. "We're going to figure this out, Maxie. This isn't your fault."

Tears sprang to Max's eyes and dripped over the ridge of her nose onto his skin.


	3. 7 Months Ago: Breaking Waves

Lydecker hadn't seen his former second-in-command, Spiro Stadler, in nearly thirty years. They hadn't parted on good terms; hell, they hadn't really parted on any terms at all, really, so he wasn't too keen on seeing him now. But the fact was, he needed Stadler. He was Lydecker's only contact at the University's Languages Department, who also happened to owe him his life, and therefore was the only person who might actually be able to read Max's runes, or at least recognize the text and give them something to go on.

Stadler's potential expertise was the reason Lydecker waited, ensconced by shadows, in the hall outside the Languages Department where he knew Stadler would turn up for their meet. Lydecker checked his wristwatch; it was past 2100 hours. Few students hung around the Ilisia campus so late – most had probably gone home for the night.

Remembering how clipped and tight Stadler's voice had been on the phone brought him a sense of satisfaction, a powerful, prideful feeling that Lydecker was still in charge, even though they parted ways all those years ago. Stadler was still afraid of his Commanding Officer.

Let him be, Lydecker thought.

The door to Philosophy opened into the hallway and Stadler stepped out to greet his former CO.

Stadler had rounded out a bit over the better part of two decades. His hair was receding, thinning, graying. His rosy cheeks weighed his face down near his chin, which made him look slovenly and anxious. The last time Lydecker saw him, he was happy, fit, in his dress blues, still in the military, with a beautiful brunette on his arm.

"Don." He nodded.

Lydecker stepped into the din of the hallway. "Spiro," he acknowledged, gripping the man's hand tightly. "How's the wife?"

Stadler pursed his lips as if preparing to give Lydecker a long spiel, and shook his head.

He knew what happened to Spiro's wife. After he came back from Maseru, he followed Spiro's career and life for a few years as it spiraled out of the military. The woman Spiro had fallen in love with, the woman which Spiro had begged Lydecker to let him go home to, she had married Spiro six short months after Lydecker's unexpected return to base. She cheated on him, divorced him a year later, and had two kids with someone else. Spiro hadn't taken it lightly – got himself legitimately discharged after a bout of alcoholism and went into teaching Languages at University.

"You know how they are," Spiro dismissed.

Lydecker nodded. "Sure." The less small talk, the better.

Stadler drew his dark brows together. "Are you sure you want to cash in my debt in on this? It sounds pretty dangerous. I heard about what happened to Dr. Adair."

Same old Spiro, thought Lydecker. Always trying to save his own ass.

"Why is this so important to you?" Spiro fidgeted and when silence got the better of him, he finally met Lydecker's eyes.

Lydecker almost laughed. Here Spiro was, again, trying to weasel his way out of something that was way bigger than him, giving no assurances that he would actually pull through on this promise.

Spiro took a deep breath. "Is it one of your kids? Is that why?"

The Colonel turned to look around. He had kept few tabs on Stadler over time, and it had been foolish not to assume Stadler had kept none on him. Manticore had become sloppy since the '09 escape, which made conspiracy theorists' days. Those kids running around free meant exposure for everyone.

He turned back to the rotund man. "You're right. It is dangerous. You need to keep this as quiet as possible. If you start asking around, start finding too many willing sources, that puts you in their crosshairs. You get caught, I can't come save you this time."

The former second-in-command took a small step toward his former CO, eyes widening. He'd always responded to the dramatic. He looked around suspiciously before whispering, "I might know someone who might be able to help."

"Might." He was losing patience with the man whose goddamned hand he shook at the funeral of the two soldiers who hadn't made it back from that mission, the man who informed their superiors that Lydecker did not make it out of the compound, had been killed in action. He grinded his teeth and scowled, trying to reign in his anger.

Stadler's hands came up defensively. "Deck, I-"

"You are a sorry excuse for a soldier," he said. "Turning tail and running at any sign of trouble like a spooked horse." Lydecker pulled a few pictures from his jacket pocket and pressed them to Stadler's softened chest. "If you don't know this language, find me someone who does."

"Wait," Stadler said when Lydecker turned to leave. "If I find someone, are we square?"

* * *

She looked so innocent with half of her face obscured by the pillow, and her bed-head, but that never stopped Alec from fantasizing about all of the things he wanted to do with her, to her, have her do to him. He pulled his body closer to hers and snuck his face to hers for a kiss.

Max immediately responded, sucking his bottom lip between hers and nibbling on it.

"Max," he started, his lip still stretched between them. He hoped it sounded like a playful warning. He pulled her closer and rolled her on top of him, the motion pulling his lip from her mouth.

She straddled him and sat up, drawing the bedsheet around her shoulders while Alec stared at her naked chest, topped with rosy peaks, her bare stomach, smoothed, even though the runes gave certain areas the appearance of sharp angles, and to his pleasant surprise, her already heated center, which teased his hardness. "Yes, Alec?"

His eyes rolled back at the sound of her practically purring his name. His hands ghosted up her thighs to grasp her hips. He pulled them down on his, pressuring her to grind on him harder. "I can't think."

"Well, whose fault is that?" She swayed slowly in place, the skin of her sex massaging the length of him.

He cleared his throat. "Yours." He released her hips, only to pull them down again, relishing in the ecstasy of her soft, perfect skin rubbing his shaft.

"Is that so?"

He mumbled in the affirmative. "If I can't think, you can bet it's because of something you did."

She rolled her hips forward and back.

"Or are doing," he amended, his jaw working to keep his wits about him.

Max dropped one hip and rocked back, creating what she could only assume from the painfully erotic look on his face was a heavenly friction. "Can you think, yet?"

When she rocked forward again, Alec's hooded eyes betrayed his longing to feel the weight of her breasts in his palms, in his mouth. He salivated and shook his head.

"What else is new?"

In one quick move, Alec pulled her down to him and rolled them over so he was now resting between her legs. "You're hilarious."

Her eyes opening slowly with pleasure, Max held back a laugh.

He considered saying what was on his mind. Instead, he asked, "are you sure you want to do this?"

The corners of her mouth turned up a fraction of an inch. "It's the only way we can do this."

Resolutely, Alec agreed. "Alright, then." Shifting his weight to one elbow, Alec swept his hand up the side of her torso and raised his thumb to caress her cheek. He lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers, softly.

Max pulled at his lower back, trying to pull him closer. "And?"

He lifted his head again, her expectant gaze stealing his breath, and then said exactly what was on his mind. "I'm in love with you."

* * *

Lydecker returned to The Anastasia to find the transgenic duo grabbing a few extra items from their baggage. He let himself in and closed the door behind him.

Alec wanted to make sure he had some form of weapon on his person, and had pulled a few small knives in a case he could fit in his cargo pants' pocket.

Max, on the other hand, was rifling through her bag for some money.

"Alec," Lydecker greeted. "Max."

"We were just about to grab some brunch," Max started. "But I think first I need to get some clothes. I'm kind of exposed like this," she said, raising her rune-laden arms to illustrate. Plus, they'd been there a month and she was getting tired of wearing the same three pairs of jeans.

"Pick anything you like – sky's the limit," Alec said, smiling.

Max knew they hadn't much money with them, but money was never a problem when being transgenic. Using her talents to win money, or covertly lifting smaller items had been two of her greatest pastimes as a teenage grifter trying to stay under the radar. "Sixty is the limit," she said, pushing the folded bills into her jeans pocket.

"Get me somethin', too," Alec said playfully.

"You're not going with?"

Alec and Lydecker shared a look suggestive of the ludicrous nature of her comment before he faced her. "Max, no guy in the history of man has liked going clothes shopping with his woman."

She let it slide, since she liked him referring to her as his woman.

"Unless it's lingerie. I'd go if it was lingerie." His eyes twinkled with mischievous fun.

Smiling at her man, Max said, "Alright, Romeo, I'll meet you at the café in forty-five?"

Lydecker interjected. "Better make it thirty."

As the brunette soldier bounded out of the room, Alec faced the former colonel. "What'd you find out?"

Lydecker crossed the distance between them. The only inkling Alec could discern that this was serious was the way the white-haired man's bushy eyebrows moved as he spoke. "There was an earthquake in Chile, mostly structural damage."

Alec had been afraid that any catastrophes would coincide with runes disappearing from Max's skin. "She has a missing symbol on her neck – well, from her neck."

Frowning, Lydecker shook his head.

"I'll talk to Dix and ask him to cross reference the symbol and 'earthquake'. I'm crossing my fingers that they are not related. I don't like the idea that there could be prophesied natural disasters. It's not right, and she definitely won't take it as a coincidence."

"I'll hear from my contact soon," Lydecker assured.

But that assurance did nothing to assuage Alec's building anxiety about Max's runes and the gradual increase of disasters. Was something or someone out there making all of this happen, or is Max just the proverbial crystal ball?

"There's something else," Lydecker said. When Alec looked up, he continued. "Have you heard of the Dark Web?"

The transgenic's brows came together as he looked left and his eyes danced right. "A subsection of the deep web. Operates internet black markets – a playground for all kinds of hidden services and illegal behavior."

"Right," he nodded. "I once walked in on Sandeman hacking the Dark Web. He was thinking out loud in fragments, talking about how this couldn't be true. 'Not my kids. Not my kids.' His fingers typed codes and algorithms so fast I could barely understand how he was doing what he was doing. He found out how his soldiers' services were being sold."

Alec grinded his teeth, lips forming a grimace that transformed his face into pure ire. "I always thought we did Manticore's bidding, not whoever's bidding paid top dollar."

"Black market deals, fraud, corruptions, pornography, assassinations – all just a handful of services Manticore allowed to help fund its endgame."

"Which is?"

"I don't know. But this would have been when you and Max were young – around the time of your meetings with Sandeman."

He was sure the longer they talked about this, the closer he would get to breaking his teeth from the force of the grinding. "We were children." He couldn't understand how anyone could force children into that kind of servitude.

"Yes, I know. I didn't know about the dark net missions then. Sometimes, a few of you were in solitary or psy-ops, and I wouldn't see them for weeks. If they came back damaged…" he trailed.

"Who did it," Alec ground out. "What sick son of a bitch sent children out to pedophiles, or to murder people?"

Lydecker shook his head. The injustice seemed to be what bothered the blonde soldier the most. "I'm sorry, son, I don't know. Someone higher than me. Someone higher than Sandeman."

Alec reeled back. "Sandeman was not Manticore's founding father?"

Again, the former colonel's countenance fell. "Sandeman started Manticore, but military got involved and government started funding. Our military? Our government? I don't know. I just know that Sandeman was beside himself with fury, his eyes wild as he realized he was part of something so merciless, so cold-blooded, and that someone was using his genius to their benefit, using his kids."

Something niggled at the back of Alec's mind, like a question he had asked years ago being answered. A few pieces were falling into place, forming more edges of the puzzle. "Okay, that makes sense, if it was right around the time Max and I were meeting with Sandeman. One of my recovered memories is Sandeman running around his office destroying stuff, saying we had to forget everything." He remembered the crazed look in Sandeman's gray-blue eyes, the fear and paranoia working overtime. "And then I saw you administering Forget-Me-Not to Max. She was so scared."

This piqued Lydecker's interest. "You saw that? Can you still make the connection?"

Alec nodded, somewhat begrudgingly. He didn't necessarily want to let Lydecker know what kind of abilities he had or that he and Max were connected in this way, but he couldn't lie his way out of this one.

"And you can control it."

At this he bristled. "I try."

"Can you see her now?"

Closing his eyes, Alec concentrated.

 _Max stood in front of a booth at a street faire, two bags in one hand, while she looked at one of the scarves in the vendor's display. "This one's pretty," Max said._

 _The woman behind the table smiled at her, one eye brighter than the other. Despite his connection, Alec could tell this woman had really bad cataracts. She probably could not see the few runes that peeked out from Max's shirt._

 _A scuffle broke out a few booths from where Max stood. She left the scarf hanging from the loop and peered over. To Alec, it appeared as if she was thinking about getting involved. But when she saw the scuffle, so did Alec._

 _A young Greek boy had his arm twisted halfway around his back, his face screwed up in pain as he tried to lift himself onto his toes to alleviate the pain._

 _One of the two older boys turned the young boy around. "Stealing is wrong," Max heard them say in unison. They twisted the younger boy's wrist until Max heard it crack._

 _The boy screamed out, "My wrist! They broke my wrist!"_

 _Max took a step forward, but froze in place when she saw the faces of the two bullies. Twin faces showed their catlike eyes – green eyes with vertical slits like reptiles. The boys also sported protruding upper lips, nearly split at the center, with enlarged pores where she expected them to have whiskers, but there were none. Perhaps they had shaved them off or plucked them to blend in with the public a little better. "Too much cat in their DNA," she mumbled._

 _The twin terrors were also particularly hirsute, long sideburns forming chops down to their chins. No ten year old boy could have that much hair, Max and Alec simultaneously reasoned._

" _Stealing is wrong," the two boys repeated, dropping the boy's arm. The sobbing Greek boy, tears streaming down his face, took off in the opposite direction as two adults approached the bullies._

 _Max flinched to run toward the two feline boys, presumably to intercept the adults before they got themselves hurt, but as soon as she took her first step, the small hybrids darted to their north and disappeared into the crowd of people._


	4. No Shadows When the Sun is High

7 Months Ago

* * *

Alec broke off from the vision, his eyebrows scrunched up in anger. He turned to Lydecker, who had laid out a map and was pouring over the area between Cairo and Athens, searching for something. "What do you know about the new class?"

"New class?" Lydecker grimaced at the suggestion and met Alec's glare. "Of what? Soldiers?" He shook his head, realizing Alec had meant soldiers.

He gave the colonel a warning look. "You cannot tell me you didn't know Manticore was still pumping out puppies and kittens."

Lydecker rose to his full stature and moved away from the map. "Strategically, that would make sense for Manticore to do, but as you are aware, Max burned those labs down and let all the kiddies out to play."

He didn't appreciate the sardonic tone he was using, but Lydecker was right. "When you were still there, did you have any units of designer hybrids under the age of 12?" Alec went straight to the point, his confidence in the former CO dwindling. It was already on thin ice, but not to divulge information like that would destroy the miniscule amount of trust he'd obtained with Max.

It dawned on him what Alec was really asking. He took a deep breath. "My last ten years with Manticore were predominantly spent searching for the escapees, and dealing with the older kids. Again, it would make logistical sense for Manticore to continue designing different kinds of hybrids for different purposes, but I was not aware of them." He paused at Alec's wary, pensive countenance. "But, what's more likely is that someone inside Manticore took the genetic material to the South Africans, or to some other bidder. Think about it: what would you do if you wanted to fast track your way into the genetics game, but didn't exactly have the thirty years' experience in the industry?"

Weighing Lydecker's reasoning, Alec let silence fall over the room. Sure, Manticore had its share of trouble, but it would be extremely difficult to compete with an entity that had been in the genetics game for more than three decades. Their experience and knowledge alone would intimidate the best of the best out there, not to mention, they had able bodied soldiers to remove competition like that. Alec had been one of those soldiers, once upon a time. Too, Max and Alec already had some proof of Renfro's involvement with another, non-Manticore entity. Would it be just as easy for her to have stolen the genetic materials and given them and Manticore research to her other employers?

Before Alec could say anything else, Lydecker's phone trilled. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the number out of habit. It could only be one person, though, and annoyed, he answered. "Tell me you got something, Stadler. It's been over a month." He paused, looking to Alec, as if Alec could help him with the imbeciles by which he'd felt surrounded. "No, you can't back out of this one. You are already in it." Lydecker meandered to the front bedroom of the vessel, leaving Alec to his own ends.

Good time to make a call, he thought, pulling his own phone out and dialing.

"Dix here."

"Hey, got a minute? I want to talk to you about a few things."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"What do you know about the Dark Web or Dark Net? Lydecker recalled Sandeman hacking into the Dark Web circa early 2000s and discovering his kids were all being used for other peoples' dirty work. Assassinations, corruptions, sex, everything."

He heard some typing on the line. Christ, it was like having a conversation with Logan, he thought bitterly. Tap, tap, tap.

"I got a light bulb about that," Dix started, wheeling to another monitor at Net Comms.

Alec shook his head. At least Dix's word choices were entertaining, even if he did fail common verbal usage.

"If Sandeman found out who was using us all those years ago, I could probably write a program using old code to fish out an older transgenic. They'll remember debriefs from old missions."

"Yeah, if they're still alive."

Dix's upbeat response came quick. "Right."

"And then maybe they can tell us who was using them."

"If _they'_ re even still alive," Dix pointed out.

He had a point. If these older soldiers were alive when Max burned the place down, they might want revenge for the acts others transgressed upon them. Which gave Alec another idea. "Maybe also see if there is a cluster of murders that are kind of weird. Like, mass murders at research facilities, I don't know."

"Okay, strange and unsolved murders. Got it." Dix chuckled, "Max finds out who these guys are, there's going to be hell to buy."

"Pay," Alec corrected. "And that's why I don't want her to know about it just yet."

Dix was confused. "Why not? These guys definitely deserve it."

"Yeah, you're right, but Max is like an accelerant. We take these guys out now, we may never get the answers we need. All pieces need to be on the board in order for us to play the long game."

There was quiet on the other line for a moment as Dix began typing again. "What's going on with her?"

"That's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about." Alec scratched the back of his neck, trying to figure out how to suggest what he hopes not to be true. "She's got a missing rune. It was on her neck, and now it's not."

He heard more typing, as, presumably, Dix brought up the saved pictures of her runes. "Okay, which one?"

"The fourth one down."

"Okay. I see it."

He pressed his lips together in some effort to keep himself from requesting what he was about to request. But he had to know. "Could you cross-reference that symbol with the phrase 'earthquake'? There was an earthquake in Chile, and I just want to see if you get any hits."

"Sure. I can do that. Have you guys been… um…" Dix trailed, waiting for Alec to finish his sentence for him. "Uh… intimate?"

Alec reeled back a bit in his stance. Well, at least he didn't say hittin' boots again. He, too, was unsure whether or not their relationship or relations had any effect on Max's runes. "I think the tidal wave and the earthquake are the only catastrophes that have happened since we've been away."

"So…"

Alec sighed. "So, I would have expected way more catastrophes if what you're suggesting is true."

"Oh. _Oh._ "

Lydecker walked back into the room, clearly frustrated. He returned to the map.

"Anything happening there?" Alec assumed that if anything serious happened, Dix would tell him immediately.

"All quiet on our front. Just building a community," Dix responded, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a bunch of transhuman and transgenic evacuees to foster a sense of civilization.

"Alright, hit me up when you get something," Alec instructed. "I gotta go."

* * *

Alec felt the weight of his knives in his khaki cargos as he walked through the street fair to find the café Max mentioned earlier. It was comforting to know he had something on hand if he or Max ran into those scrappy little assholes.

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the red, blue and black scarf Max had perused. He stopped by the small booth, ran his fingers along the length of material, and noted the elderly woman, her eyes clouded over with cataracts. Her white hair was unkempt, flyaways drifting lightly in the breeze.

"You like for your lady?" Her voice was raspy and matronly like an old grandma's. Or so he'd heard from Sketchy once or twice. There was a contentment about it, and it calmed him.

Alec smiled, thinking about Max. He imagined her wearing this scarf back in Seattle. It would throw some bold splashes of color in their otherwise gray word. She would wear it somewhere, and when she looked at him, it would bring out the twinkle in her eyes, and she would smile wide and say his name and tell him how much she loved him. And maybe, his thoughts turned more intimate, she would wrap just this scarf around her body and say those things to him.

"I'll take it," he said, pulling a few bills from his pocket. "How much?"

"Twenty."

Before he could pay the woman, the hair raised on his hackles, putting him on alert. Was someone watching him? He kept his eyes on the vendor and concentrated on listening for something out of the ordinary.

The little old woman's white eyebrows gathered together toward her nose as she picked up on Alec's unease. "There are no shadows when the sun is high," she said.

Well, that was vague. And straightforward. He handed her the money and discreetly looked around. Through the throngs of people, he could not see any out-of-place children, or anyone who looked like they might be Familiar secret service. "Efharisto," he said to the elderly woman, accepting the small bag in which she'd put the scarf.

When he arrived at the café, Max sat in the patio section, sipping from one of the two mojitos on the table. Several bags rested at her feet. She jumped up to greet him as soon as she spotted him.

"Hey."

Alec leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. "Hey. Did you have fun shopping?"

Her brows furrowed a bit. She ushered him to their table and they sat next to one another. "Yeah. I had a run-in with some unfriendlies. Two little shitheads that broke some kid's wrist."

Searching his memory, Alec recited. "One had a cat's face / one whisk'd a tail, / one tramp'd at a rat's pace / one crawl'd like a snail," he began.

She realized he'd used his connection. He'd seen what happened. How else could he know about the encounter? She watched him in awe and listened to the poem. He described the two sisters who were cautioned against going to the market, warned of the goblin men who would attempt to entice them with their goods. Listened to the way the one sister heeded the advice while the other did not.

Alec continued. "The whisk'd-tailed merchant bade her taste / in tones as smooth as honey / the cat-faced purr'd / the rat-face spoke a word."

Max disliked this poem. It reminded her of Manticore's creations, the Nomalies. They sounded like the monsters that kept her unit up at night, weird creations that didn't look like them. It reminded her of Joshua and Isaac, two very different brothers who had learned how to be, what to be, from someone else.

The tale continued, as one sister gave in to the market's goblin men and was poisoned, and how the other sister braved the aggressive goblin men to obtain the antidote. The poem's finale offered insight into sisterhood, which saddened Max, having lost her sisters in one way or another, to Manticore's market. Except the goblins weren't the Nomalies. The goblins were the men and women who sent them out into the world to kill, who could care less about the children they were helping to shape, who drove Ben crazy and sacrificed Tinga and took away Zack's identity.

For now, though, Max had a job to do. She compartmentalized the anger and frustration, and looked into Alec's awaiting eyes. It was as if he was on the edge of his seat, wondering what she would think of these words Sandeman had him memorize all those years ago. Was this part of it all? Was this a clue he'd given Alec, so that they'd know they were on track?

"It bothers me that these new kids are so merciless," she said.

He knew she'd feel this way. He knew she took issue with the soullessness of Manticore's – or whoever's – creations. It created an imbalance in her world. Children were supposed to be innocent and adventurous and excited, not programmed. He reflected on his own upbringing. He hadn't understood the implications of his actions when he was younger. It wasn't until he was in his early teens that he began to comprehend that there was anything outside of 'no, sir,' 'yes, sir,' and 'mission accomplished.' And he'd still felt as if he were caged – as if he didn't have a place in the world outside Manticore's walls.

Like a ripple in a pond, Max saw how her words swirled through his experiences, and he looked away a moment. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"Let's just talk about something else," he said. He fingered the handles of the bag and brought it up. "I got you something."

A sneaky little smile started on her lips. "You got me a present?" Her eyes already twinkled at the idea, which echoed his earlier fantasy. She must have seen that change in his gaze, as she added, "Should I wait until we get back to open it?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Go ahead."

Max reached her hand into the bag and pulled out the scarf she'd been eyeing earlier. She held it against her face to feel its softness, then dropped her hands into her lap. "Thank you."

Sincerity shined through her eyes like a beam of moonlight through a turbulent ocean. "You like it?"

In response, Max leaned toward him and kissed him softly. He put his arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder, her nose nearing the place on his neck she swore she could live in forever.

He squeezed her shoulder. "Do you see anyone? Anything?"

Max glanced around. "No, not yet. You?"

"Nope."

"We'll just keep at it until they reveal themselves."

* * *

Lydecker spent most of his time traveling out to different cities, looking for signs that White or Fink had been there. Every day, he looked for bodies, for buildings big enough to house a Manticore-like operation, for little children that looked like experiments gone wrong. He would be gone for days, sometimes a week at a time.

And every day, Max and Alec picked a different local restaurant, his weapons hidden somewhere on his body, sometimes on hers, and sat and talked and ate and kissed and waited for White's lackeys to scurry out of the woodworks to chase after them. For a solid week, all they'd managed to do was get one another all riled up from the caresses and chaste kisses and hooded eyes, and then rush back to the boat, eager to tear off their clothes and sink their teeth into each other.

But one day, they spotted a little, lightly grey-skinned, bald girl with big black eyes. At least, Alec thought she had a feminine heir about her. She had open pores where he assumed they'd planned for her to have whiskers. She watched them from the water, partially hidden, as they sipped their lemonade, ate their sandwiches, and kissed each other.

"Max, I think we have a tail," Alec said nonchalantly.

"I had mine surgically removed," Max said, giggling at her own joke. She reached for her lemonade.

Alec gave her an impatient look. "Seriously. Four o'clock. Girl in the water."

Checking the direction of the alleged 'tail,' Max sat up a little straighter and set down her drink, trying to remember their strategy. Keep running. Do not go back to the boat until they're sure they lost them. "I was beginning to wonder if we were way off."

Alec dragged his feet back from their outstretched positions under their table, and slid his hand down Max's arm to rest on the back of her chair. He turned and looked straight at the grey girl, who panicked, averting her gaze to somewhere to her left. He followed her line of sight and tapped Max on the elbow with a wave of four fingers.

"Ready?" Max noticed the four hybrid creatures Alec had called out. The twin felines from the street fair blinked their first set of eyelids as they spotted the seated duo, and motioned to the two girls next to them. The blonde girl elbowed the brunette, and two familial faces with protruding noses like snouts pointed their direction.

"Yep." Alec put some money on the table and then without further reservation, jumped up and started running, Max, hot on his heels.


	5. Friction

_Last time: Alec put some money on the table and then without further reservation, jumped up and started running, Max, hot on his heels._

* * *

6 Months Ago

* * *

And so it went, day after day. Once spotted, the transgenics would tear out into the street or the woods or the residential areas and lead the transhuman kids fifteen or twenty miles in a direction, hearts pounding in their chests, barely working up a sweat. The kids would either stop chasing them, or Alec would lead Max into a hiding spot and they'd wait in silence a few minutes for the young soldiers to pass and move on to another zone.

They'd spend their walk back to the boat talking and arguing playfully and joking around, sometimes challenging one another to quick games or tricks, and return to the makeshift table below deck and mark the map to indicate where they'd been and where the kids stopped following them.

Lydecker typically waited twenty miles from their starting point, ready to trail the mini-troops back to their base. He'd show up a couple of hours later, tired from the day, and mark the map where he lost them, or where they stopped and turned back, or where they realized they'd lost Max and Alec.

But the trio still hadn't been able to ascertain the new Manticore base. After several weeks of running around the city, all roads seemed to keep leading out, or back to their starting point. The colonel and two X-Series soldiers gathered around the map, checking their various routes against one another's, all to no avail.

"Well, you know what this suggests," Lydecker started, "is that we either need to go up or down."

Adding buildings and sewers into their routine presented a whole new level of difficulty to their strategy, not to mention the sheer number of man hours.

"Also," the white-haired man said, "you're not going to like this idea, but you may consider splitting up so we can cover more ground."

Max nodded, staring at the little lines of the map, starting to create her first route. Her brown eyes shifted over different parts where she knew there were buildings. "I'll go down – maybe underneath one of these empty buildings."

"Absolutely not," Alec deadpanned.

Lydecker breathed out of his nose in a scoff, thin lips pressed in a firm line.

Bristling, Max said, "It's not like we can't take care of ourselves, Alec."

"True. But let's say best case scenario: one of us finds their base. How do we tell each other before they realize what we've found and cauterize their own site? Or, and this is more likely, they chase only you, Max." He turned to see Lydecker's assenting reaction, and then snapped his head back to the brunette. "You're basically their map to this prophesy, and I'm not willing to risk that text just to save us time."

Max's mouth fell open in an instant. Alec realized his mistake as soon as her jaw set to grind and hurt flashed through her like lightning. "Thanks for not making me feel like any more of a freak," she said. She blazed past Lydecker and into the back bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Alec rolled his eyes, wondering why the hell he just said that, and flinched to go after her.

"Let her cool down," Lydecker stopped him. "You're right. She'll realize that."

But even the colonel's outstretched hand couldn't stop Alec. Lydecker wasn't great at interpersonal relationships, which made him a great military man, but a terrible mentor when it came to matters of the heart. He passed Lydecker and headed toward the bedroom.

"A billion dollars of R and D, and I'm stuck in a goddamn soap opera," Lydecker mumbled, making his way up the stairs and onto the deck.

The door wasn't locked when Alec tried it; he hoped that it meant Max wanted him to follow her. In the room, he found her leaning against the railing, back to him, arms folding in front of her. He approached warily.

"I know," she broke the silence, but still refused to look at him. "I know I'm a frickin' textbook with these little ink spots all over my body, runes that tell a prophesy that seems to be coming true, that tell a story in some foreign language about cataclysmic events, little markings that someone else coded into my frickin' DNA to show up near the end of days, but you…"

He already felt terrible. He knew what she was going to do. She'd ask what they were doing if all he could see when he looked at her was some kind of secret in the mysterious rune-riddle of this stupid prophesy, but he didn't see that when he looked at her. Not at all.

She finally turned, and his heart broke at the sorrowed look on her face, brows turned as if in pain, eyes glassy wit unshed tears. "You never treated me like I was an object."

He breathed out, understanding. "Max, I'm sorry." He took two steps forward, watching her body language to see if she was open to his apology. She didn't move at all, which was neither good nor bad, but when they locked eyes, he could see the hope she carried for the two of them, and he took the remaining steps. He slid his palm along her jaw. "You know I don't see you that way. And don't give me that 'I can take care of myself' crap," he paused while she gave her patented eye roll, because she could take care of herself and was not shy about stating it as fact, before continuing, "because this is not about your self-reliance to them. They don't care what you think, they don't care what I think, they don't care what happens on the journey to stopping this prophesy, but I do." He slid his hand over her shoulder and down her arm. "And not just because you play a prophesied and pivotal role in this thing, but because I'm a greedy bastard who wants you all to myself. I want you, all parts of you, rune or otherwise. You're the most amazing woman I've known." This sentiment earned him a watery-eyed lopsided smile. "Besides, I already know what all these mean."

Max raised her arm, and halfway up, Alec captured her hand with his and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and turned her palm upwards, revealing a couple of her first runes. She remained quiet, waiting, their conversation shifting to a more intimate tone.

"For example," he started. "This one right here," he suggested with a quick dart of his eyes. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her wrist. "This one means 'compassionate.'"

He picked a random rune, halfway up her forearm, and kissed it softly, reverently. "This one means 'powerful.'" He stared into her eyes, trying to find any words at all that could convey everything she meant to him. There simply wouldn't be enough runes, and as he realized that, he caught the way her pupils dilated.

She watched, lazy lids sagging with the weight of her lust, as his bottom lip dragged along the underside of her forearm, arguably the least sexy part of her, yet he made it feel like this fire was consuming her, spreading out from each location his lips touched.

He skipped over her sleeve-clad bicep, circling his thumb over the top of her collarbone, and pulled the neck of her shirt over her shoulder. He pressed his lips in a pucker at another rune there, and Max closed her eyes, tilting her head back to let the sensation wash over her. "This one means 'grace,'" he spoke against her soft skin.

Her hands drifted up, one around his shoulder and neck, the other scraping into his scalp to hold his head against her chest. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, tonguing at runes and non-runes alike. His warm hands circled around her and up under the back of her shirt.

Max released his head at his suggestion to lift her shirt from her body, along the length of her torso and arms, and up overhead, baring the top majority of her runes to him. He dropped her shirt to the bed next to them, grasped her hips and knelt down, focusing on one rune to the right of her belly button. She held each side of his head in her hands, her head tilted and lips parted slightly as she watched him. His attention stayed on that one rune, his determination sending rippling vibrations through her. "What about that one?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

Alec tilted his head and ghosted over the rune with his lips, then the flat of his tongue, eliciting a pleasured hum from deep inside Max's body. "Promise," he answered, kissing it again. His voice pulled a rush of anticipation to her core.

He brought his hands back between them and unbuttoned her jeans. Curling his fingertips around the denim, and cotton underneath, he pulled the material down, exposing her lower abdomen, her bare hips, her sex, peppering kisses downward as those little symbols became available. 'Beauty,' 'Soul,' and 'Fighter' among the runes he found there.

Heady with desire, Max nearly panted at his poetry-making, feeling the wetness pool at her center. God, the things this man said with his mouth – did with his mouth. She was sure her irises were completely eclipsed by now.

He gently pushed at her hips to sit her on the bed and peeled her clothes down her legs, slipping off her shoes when they became obstacles.

He hinted for her to scoot backward on the bed, which she did, her heartbeat increasing rapidly as he shed his shirt and shoes, and knelt on the bed. He crawled forward until his hungry intention became clear and she parted her knees. Alec fixated on another rune on her inner thigh, dragging the tip of his tongue on her skin, slowly writing the rune with his taste buds. "Irresistible," he decoded.

Overwhelmed by this man, Max felt the little puffs of air against her opposite thigh, getting closer and closer to his target. She longed to reach out and pull him by the hair toward her lower lips, for him to mimic their long, sensual kisses with his tongue and nose buried inside her. The image alone made her muscles clench. She pleaded his name.

He paused his ministrations at the top of her thigh and smiled lazily. "Bossy," he smiled. "This one means bossy." He chuckled at her insistent, desperate half-smile half-glare when she swatted at him playfully, and lowered his head again. Without warning, he nudged her outer lips with his nose and swiped his tongue the length of her slit. Wasting no more time, Alec plunged his tongue into her, curled it to rub at the spot inside, and groaned at the wetness coating his tongue.

Her back arched off the bed, the motion squeezing his tongue inside her, and she gave a surprised yawp at the pleasure piercing her from the core out. "Alec," she commanded, more persistently, more aggressively.

He strained against his own pants, now, and her whine was going to do him in. He understood by the fact that she was positively dripping all over his tongue, and by her begging tone, that she wanted nothing more than for him to ravage her now, as quickly as possible. Which meant, he decided, he needed to slow things down a little. He lapped between her folds once more and then raised up onto his arms.

She breathed heavily, holding his stare. She hadn't even bothered to remove her bra – an action she quickly remedied.

"We need something," he said, aching against his pants, aching to be inside of her, aching to make her scream so loud the vibrations disrupted marine life below them.

Max pulled at the waist of his pants, enough to pick the button from its hole and pull his zipper down. She needed him to be as naked, as vulnerable and completely insatiable, as she was. That meant his pants didn't even make it all the way off, and she didn't care.

With the barest presence of mind, Alec crawled up between her legs and reached into the nightstand for a condom. His movements were the epitome of precision and speed, and good thing they were, too, because as soon as it was rolled on all the way, Max pulled him down to her mouth and he pushed into her core.

"Yes," she mouthed when he started to move. Her hands posted at the slopes of his back, up and down, up and down while he mirrored those same movements with the snap and pullback of his hips. The look of sheer ecstasy on her face had him burying his face at her chest, focused on keeping the rhythm, but her hands reached further down to pull and hold the base of him against the cradle of her hips. She needed the friction.

He kissed her again, tongue sweeping into her open mouth, tangling with hers for dominance. He felt her teeth pinching his bottom lip almost painfully, making him twitch inside of her. He felt the challenge in her bite and thrust into her punishingly. He felt the clutch of her muscles, her labia holding him deep, the warmth of her juices heating him; it spurred him on, made him so desperate for her cry that he dug himself in, thrust after thrust, until he hit that spot way at the top of her cervix – the one that made her mewl absentmindedly, the one that called out to her baser needs and made her chest shake from the anticipation of impending orgasm.

Absolutely lit up inside, Max writhed under him, answering Alec's pace and thrust to match her quick-beating heart. Their pleasure compounded exponentially, the force of his hips causing her to brace her hands against the headboard. Fortunately for him, this meant he could watch unabashedly as her breasts bounced while he pounded into her.

"I'm gonna come." He meant it as an explanation for his intention to slow down, but her eyes flicked open and her muscles started to contract.

"Oh my god, Alec!" Her breathing hitched. She held her breath as her orgasm came on, her walls fluttering around him like a thousand little strokes, and he followed her with his own groaning climax, pumping into her while she moaned and screamed and cried out, and slowed down as their pleasures started to fade like the outer rings of a ripple.

She kissed him slowly, then, lovingly.

He stayed inside her, moving his mouth over hers, down her chin, down her neck. He stopped just above her breast, kissing gently at a rune there. "This one is 'love.'"

Max ruffled his hair and cupped his jaw. "I love you, too."

He cast a glance downward, feeling like the luckiest transgenic on the planet. He held the base of the condom and backed out of her, an instant look of worry overtaking his features.

"What?" Max sat up on her elbows, alerted to his wide-eyed expression.

"Uh, Max," he said, looking down and then back up to her.

"What?"

"The condom broke."


	6. More Than Words

6 months ago

* * *

Max pushed her hair behind her ear, staring into Alec's eyes as he dipped a strawberries into the whipped cream. Her lips twitched as she watched him bring one deep red, juicy berry to his lips, puckered around the tip of its seeded skin, and sucked the cream while he bit into it. Just as she considered dropping her voice to a whisper and suggesting they retire to the boat so he can take another kind of peak into his mouth, he turned his head.

"We've been at this for two weeks, and still, no more leads. We've gone into a couple sewers and a dozen empty buildings, and still, nothing. What are we missing?" Alec set the stem of the strawberry on the side plate and wiped his index finger around the rim of the whipped cream bowl.

Intercepting his finger on the way to his mouth, Max pulled his hand toward hers instead, taking his finger into her mouth, wrapping her lips around the second knuckle and slowly sliding his digit out of her mouth. If his pupils dilated that quickly, she wondered if other parts of him also expanded that fast. She circled her tongue around his fingertip and watched his eyes searching hers as his mouth formed inaudible words, before kissing the printed tip and releasing him.

He bored into her, hungry and with mouth watering, sitting there like a goddamn fish, struck speechless by the hum of her body, anxious to feel her skin under his taste buds. "Don't start something you can't finish, Maxie," he finally managed softly. Screw this mission, he thought, at least for the next few hours. He'd hardened immediately when she'd taken his finger into her warm, wet mouth, and sucked the cream right off of it, and now she was staring at him under hooded eyes, and they were stuck here at this bistro.

"Who says I have any intention of not finishing it?" Her brow arched in challenge and her eyes shot down to his delectable lips.

He felt a pulse strike right through his body while he considered all of the public sex acts that raced through his mind, relaying heated images straight to his groin, but movement fifty feet behind Max snapped him out of his thoughts. "As much as I can't wait for this, we have company," he said, rolling his eyes as if to suggest that of course the universe would tease him like this.

His acknowledgement broke her out of her seductive trance and she sat up straight. Her heart had been pounding for an entirely different reason just a few seconds ago, and reigning in her lust proved to be difficult.

"Look like adults, though," he said, his pupils dilating to utilize his zoom. "Maybe White's guys." Finally, he thought. They're finally sending the big guns after them. Hopefully.

Keeping her back to the men behind her, Max looked forlornly at the bowl of whipped cream and then back up to her dirty-blonde boyfriend. The loss of alone time was palpable for her.

"I know," he agreed. "You can make it up to me." He smiled, wagging his eyebrows. "Let's go."

They'd only run for two miles, the men hot on their trail, when they found themselves close to port in an old construction yard of a company that'd clearly been out of business for decades, judging by the old, rusted pipes and even older run down cars that'd been picked for their working parts long ago. He saw the door to the mechanical room and took a chance. He pulled Max in, slammed the door shut and backed her up against it, covered her mouth with his hand and her torso with his broad chest, and looked over her shoulder through the small window, waiting for their pursuers to either catch up to or bypass them.

Max's chest bumped into his with each heaving breath as she watched his eyes for any clue as to what was happening outside, completely trusting that his expressions would inform her right away if they needed to move. Her heart was pounding and she suddenly felt hyperaware of each place their bodies touched. Their chests, the tops of their thighs, his hand over her lips and arm across her collarbone. He had been breathing hard, too, and with his attention focused out the window, she felt the adrenaline sparking her skin to life.

As soon as Alec saw the men pass up the yard, he backed away from Max and, with the sudden realization that he'd been holding his hand against her mouth and forearm against her torso, gently removed both. But the look on her face betrayed pure need, her lips flushed, her skin hot, her eyes wide, her chest heaving.

She surged forward and attacked his lips, grasping his hair in chunks as he pressed forward until her back hit the hot metal of the door again. She opened her lips to his probing tongue, and before she knew it, he backed away, eyes blown out, erection straining against his cargos. "Do we have something?" she asked breathlessly.

He smiled and reached into his leg pocket, producing the item in question.

* * *

While Alec showered, Max spent a few minutes marking off the map for the construction yard they'd visited, marking the building itself with an 'X,' but considering its proximity to the water and the quickness with which Lydecker returned, she felt like they might be getting closer.

Lydecker took the stairs below deck, where he found Max with the marker. "They barely went anywhere after they lost you," he announced, getting closer to view the map.

"We didn't go very far," Max said, her face flushing with warmth, feeling like she had just divulged her and Alec's sexual act against the door of the company building. She cleared her throat. "Maybe two miles?"

"I see that." Lydecker's brows bounced up once before he turned away.

"Were they White's guys? Familiars? They didn't look like the guys from Seattle." She didn't like not knowing her enemy. It made her feel more vulnerable, less in control.

Noting the worried look on her face, Lydecker said, "Don't worry, Tutu." He had the ghost of a smile on his lips.

She set the marker down and folded her arms in front of her. How was that even possible for Lydecker to know that name? She'd only remembered him calling her that in the regression. Did he remember that, too? "How do you know that name?"

He pursed his lips in a straight line before considering telling her. As far as he knew, he was the only one who remembered it. "I remembered it in one of my reacquired memories."

She sat down at the small table. "How did I get that nickname?"

His small suggestion of a smile reappeared on his face, and his wrinkles softened a bit as he recalled what happened. "It was back at Manticore. A frightened little 452 came to me, scared and shaking. I think you were on the precipice of a seizure and you were scared you were going to be found out." He grinned, but it fell quickly as nostalgia gave way to the knowledge of what usually happened to defective soldiers, even the young ones.

Max listened, on the edge of her seat waiting for his tale to continue.

"Well, in you came, and just like everywhere else, when you enter a room, you stated your designation. But you stuttered, four five t-two." He looked into the distance somewhere, remember that innocent little girl who just needed to feel safe; the little girl whose safety Sandeman had entrusted to the young lieutenant. "So, you sat on my lap and I told you a story while you seized." He looked up at Max.

It was one of the first times he'd ever seen her look upon him without an ounce of contempt. He liked the feeling; he wondered how long she would hate him for what Manticore had him do after the protocol was administered. He felt helpless to it – he couldn't have stopped what they had him do after the protocol; he wouldn't have remembered any part of what happened before it. He felt accountable all the same.

"So, what was the story?"

He took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows, remembering. "The story was about a brave, young ballerina who constantly shook. She shook so much that she was afraid she'd never be able to dance in a company. And the producers at this company were so strict. They kicked anyone out who wasn't perfect. But, every day, she practiced her form, and every day, she became better and better, until one day, she was so good that no one ever suspected that she ever trembled. By the end of the story, your seizure was over, and you passed out in my arms."

Max sat back, eyes welling with tears. He knew? He knew all along that she had seizures? And he protected her. He protected her all the way until Sandeman enforced the protocol and made them forget. It was possible, she guessed, that he knew about them after the protocol's administration, as well, and just never said anything.

What do you say to the man who tormented you for more than ten years, but also saved you and protected you?

"Thank you," she said barely above a whisper.

Lydecker met her sincere eyes, and for the first time in a long time, felt her gratitude penetrate his exterior. He nodded, but could say nothing further, the lump in his throat paralyzing his vocal chords.

She sat there, and he stood, both in silence, feeling the weight of their former partnership take form, feeling the gravity of their past inform their current relationship. She knew now that she could trust him, and he knew that meant he needed to be trustworthy.

His phone buzzed, and he looked down to its face, recognizing the number on his caller ID. "Stadler," he said. He answered. "Tell me you have something." He paced toward the table and grabbed the marker, writing a set of coordinates on the map corner. "Okay, got it." He hung up.

"He finally come through with someone who can help with these runes?" Max asked, standing up.

"Yeah, he got me a meet, but it's out at sea."

"Want us to tag along?" Max offered, not quite yet ready to break the spell of their conversation.

"I'll be back in a bit." The former Colonel headed up the stairs onto the deck.

* * *

Alec and Max sat in front of the map and studied it, ready to create new routes they could take in the coming days, waiting for Lydecker to have his meeting and hopefully return with good news. Something. Anything. Alec took a sidelong glance at Max, who had already been watching him. When caught, she cast her eyes back at the map and smiled.

"'You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?'" he asked, quoting Browning's _Andrea Del Sarto._

Max looked back up to him, fixing her warm stare into him. She smiled, hearing the cadence in his speech change to something not quite his. She shut her mouth, hoping he'd say more.

Alec's open mouth quirked up on one side as he continued, a little further in the poem. "'Should you let me sit / here by the window with your hand in mine / and look a half hour forth on Fiesole, / both of one mind, as married people use, / quietly, quietly the evening through, / I might get up tomorrow to my work / cheerful and fresh as ever.'"

She sat there, rapt, surprised at the sentiment he gave her with his recitation.

"'I am bold to say / I can do with my pencil what I know," he paused when Max fixed him with a stare suggesting his 'pencil' was a euphemism for something else entirely, something dirty. He continued, "What I see, what at bottom of my heart / I wish for, if I ever wish so deep / - Do easily, too – when I say, perfectly, / I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge.'" He almost blushed at the seductive look she gave him at the suggestion.

"'Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / or what's a heaven for?'" This line spoke to him above some of the others. The poem described a painter, reaching for greatness, commenting that even the greatest of arts is nothing without a soul behind it, without something to color it, fill it with meaning. Alec had been a part of Manticore for so long, and meeting Max had opened up a part of him he hadn't known existed; it was a part of him that was hopeful, ambitious, that wanted to be better, not just for her, but because she made him believe it was already in him. Here he was, living in the beyond, living his heaven.

Overcome with emotion, Alec took a breath. His brows pulled together, and when Max saw it, her concern became evident. She reached a hand out to touch him, sweeping her fingertips along the back of his hand like she understood. And she did.

He swallowed thickly. "'You called me, and I came home to your heart.'"

At this Max actually stood up and took the two steps to settle herself in his lap, straddling him, and held his face in her palms. Her eyes glassed with unshed tears and she leaned forward to press her lips to one eyelid, then the other, and then she kissed the tip of his nose, moving down to his lips. She gave him a quick peck, then another, letting her lips linger longer on his. When he wrapped his arms around her back and held her to his chest, she deepened their kiss.

He infused every bit of his love into their slow, passionate kiss, felt the gentle balance between their dueling tongues and the soft purr of her body against his.

She broke off their kiss and found his urgent gaze. "We keep each other reaching," she murmured. "And when you call me, I come home to your heart."

His hazel stare bored into her. How could he explain the feeling in his heart? How could he express how resolutely and thoroughly she built him up and gave him opportunity to prove that worth? That he was here because she made him worthy? He wasn't sure there were words for this depth.

Alec raised his palm to her cheek, sweeping his fingertips to the back of her neck, absentmindedly touching her barcode, and his thumb over her cheek, over the soft lobe of her ear, and touched his open mouth to hers. He held her lips to his by that hand, rubbing her jaw and massaging her neck with his fingers, strumming her forward so he could try – try to show her how much he loved her, try to show her how he needed her.

Her tongue ghosted forward, and his met it, uniting them in a primal need for connection. He grunted softly, picked her up by both of her thighs, and carried her to the bedroom. He set her down between himself and the bed. Silently, and simultaneously, the lovers removed their clothing, staring into one another, needing each other to consume, searching for that feeling of completion.

Max backed up onto the bed and reached out to accept his body between her legs. He kissed her softly, sweetly, until she whimpered at the simple beauty of his confession, and pulled his neck, his back, his hips into her, filling her thickly with smooth hardness.

Burying his face in her neck, Alec breathed a sigh as Max's lips formed a silent 'oh,' and he dedicated every fiber of his being to her.

 _Home_.


	7. Chapter 7: Protection

6 months ago

* * *

Lydecker steered the boat out into the open water, keeping the lights off and his steely eyes peeled for Stadler and his contact. He was drifting at the coordinates Stadler had given him for nearly thirty minutes before a speedboat made its way to him. With the one arm hanging between his knees, Lydecker gripped his gun, trigger finger resting at the side of the barrel.

Once the boat reached close distance, Lydecker made out Stadler's thin layer of receding hair, and the long, thick, and dark wavy hair of a young woman. As the vessel sidled up to his, a pair of feminine hands reached out, one grabbing onto to the railing and the other accidentally grabbing Lydecker's free hand firmly. He met the glance of that young woman, whom must have been Stadler's contact. Her eyes were light brown with little petals of gray blue around her pupils. Genuinely intriguing eyes.

He yanked his hand back in shock. She was striking, really, and in a moment, he knew why. Save for her beautiful browned honey eyes with the gray blue inner rim, this young woman looked just like her mother, Anastasia Antonopoulos. She seemed to be about Max's age, which confirmed that she was not Lydecker's daughter, since Anastasia disappeared before Tony was born, and that Anastasia was alive for at least a few years after she disappeared – long enough to have another child. It also meant that this girl was half-sister to his son.

Struck speechless, he faltered a moment and she hesitated, unsure of the white haired man.

"You are Donald?" she asked, then looked to Stadler for confirmation. The other man nodded and she turned her stare back to him.

Lydecker wanted to ask about her mother immediately. Was she still alive? Had she had a good life after Manticore? Who was this girl's father? Did she have more children? Instead, he attempted to confirm his theory. "You're Sibyl."

The young woman stretched out her slender arm and offered her hand, her eyes wide with surprise. "Yes," she answered. "I go by my middle name, Alethea. Alethea Sarantis."

Her affirmation proved the theory. Anastasia had mentioned a couple of times that if she ever had a daughter, she would name her Sibyl. His brain caught up to him and he stuttered out, "Alethea, Greek for… truth."

She smiled, her teeth so white against the exotic hue of her skin. "You knew my mother," she stated.

 _I loved your mother,_ Lydecker thought. He laid the gun down at his feet and nodded, hoping his poker face was still intact. "She was quite a woman. Sharp, beautiful." _Passionate,_ he wanted to add, but it didn't seem appropriate to say to her daughter.

Alethea cast sadness into the dark water, as if it was the catcher of despair. "She was."

He got the distinct feeling that her use of past tense denoted finality. It would have been a fool's errand to hope he could somehow get her back after all these years. It was as if he'd been robbed of that hope prematurely. Anastasia was gone.

He wanted to reach out to Alethea, comfort her somehow; after all, he'd mourned the loss of two women he'd loved before, but he didn't know how to give solace to another. He finally tore his gaze away from her and found Stadler's beady little eyes watching their interaction. He seemed to have no idea how Lydecker knew Alethea's mother, and was probably confusedly trying to piece together some kind of speculation.

"Alethea is an undergrad. She worked closely with her mentor Dr. Adair," he offered, shifting in his seat, causing their boat to rock a bit on the water. "She has a genius-level IQ."

Lydecker regarded the man across from him. Had he merely picked Alethea out of the pool of genius protégées in order to satisfy their deal, or was this truly coincidence?

The young woman met Lydecker's inquisitive eyes again, shrugging off Stadler's praise. "After what happened to Dr. Adair, I knew I had to leave. Or hide. No one wants to be blown up, and whoever was after her could just as easily find me."

Her safety was definitely paramount. It seemed too accidental that she had worked with their only contact at the University. "Did you have vision to what Dr. Adair was working on before she was killed?"

"Yes," she answered simply. "And I want to help you. Do you have the pages of text with the markings on them?"

He grimaced a second, weighing how much he should reveal to her. But he had a feeling about her, an instinct. He followed it. "I can take you to them," he said vaguely.

The dark haired woman studied Lydecker, then turned to Stadler. "I will go with him," she told him. She stood up suddenly, causing their boat to rock, and prepared to step onto Lydecker's vessel.

"You sure?" Stadler asked, but he grabbed the side of Lydecker's boat to balance the vessels.

She nodded and Lydecker reached a hand out to help steady her as she placed one booted foot into his boat.

"Are we square now?" Stadler asked as Alethea's other foot landed on his former CO's bench.

 _Coward,_ Lydecker thought again. His brows bushed together for a moment. "Goodbye, Spiro."

Stadler couldn't get out of there fast enough. He started up the motor and sped off into the darkness without another word.

Alethea sat down on the bench and stared into Lydecker's blue eyes. "Mom died six years ago," she offered.

* * *

Alec couldn't sleep.

He laid next to Max, him on his back and her on her stomach, both naked as the day they were born, with his eyes wide open and his attention divided between the low ceiling above them and the turmoil of his inner thoughts.

They hadn't really addressed the broken condom. He'd smirked for a fraction of a second at the time, ready to roar proudly that nothing could contain him, but that smug feeling fell quickly as the panic set in.

They weren't ready to be parents, were they? What if he'd actually impregnated her? Now wasn't the right time to bring a baby into the world, this world – not when they were being hunted by government agencies and secret ops teams and White and who knows who else. If he and Max conceived a child, it might mean the prophesy was true, which would mean they couldn't stop what was going to happen. Max would be pregnant, in the operating room, with their baby at the end of White's gunpoint. Which, he thought, was probably the scariest thing he'd ever imagined.

But they could beat White. Even if she was pregnant, they could find a way to best White, remove themselves from danger, have the baby, and live a normal life together. Right?

And if they did, where would they would live? Would the baby have their immunities, including the ones that protected them from the toxicity of Terminal City? And if not, where would they go to make sure their baby was safe? Could they leave their lives in Seattle behind and start over somewhere else? Was there anywhere else where they could go where they wouldn't be running from potential threats and capture?

What about all of their people? If they left, would TC fall apart?

It was with these thoughts that he'd pulled the ragged ripped latex from himself and sauntered to the bathroom to dispose of the condom and bring her something to help clean up their shared mess. He only got as far as wrapping the latex up in toilet paper and tossing it in the trash bin before he felt her presence behind him. He could see her panicked expression in the mirror, and all of those thoughts faded.

He'd turned, told her not to worry. That even though it was possible that something could result from their coupling, they couldn't predict pregnancy. That if they did end up pregnant, they'd figure it out. He'd told her that they'd shared something intimate and special, and he would do any and everything possible to protect them. She had needed the assurance, and if he was honest with himself, so had he. She'd nodded, giving him an uneasy half smile.

But this time, they hadn't even used protection. In the moment, that moment filled with such unbridled love, the fact that neither of them went for the condom felt like a confession, a promise, a devotion, a deliberate choice. It was closer to the truth than language could ever be. She'd made the same confession, the same careful promise, the same deep devotion.

She chose him, too.

Alec smiled up at the ceiling and then turned to face her.

 _What complex creatures we are_ , he thought. _So in love._ He stayed in that quiet awe for two full minutes until he noticed an empty spot on her shoulder blade where two runes used to be.

 _Shit._

What if that meant something? Was Max pregnant? Would there be another catastrophe? Another block in this fucked up game of prophesy Jenga? He sighed quietly, frustrated on her behalf to not know what the goddamned plan was.

The noise was enough to rouse her. Seeing his state of concern, Max propped up onto her elbow. "What's wrong?"

In that instant, Alec filled with anger, fed up that she had to deal with this – that it was all put on her. And in that same instant, he knew he'd do anything to protect her.

Anything.

* * *

The bite of the salty ocean air chilled their faces as Lydecker steered the chartered boat toward the marina, the hull slicing through the waves as if they, too, were subject to his thoughts.

Anastasia had gotten out of Manticore. Escaped? Maybe he'd never know. The fact that Tony even existed proved Manticore hadn't put her down, and the fact that Alethea was born a few years later proved Anastasia had avoided being captured or killed, so how had she ensured her own safety? Had she any help? Someone who could have helped her change her name and get out of the country? Someone like Max's cyber journalist friend?

Alethea had been relatively quiet on the short trip back, but as Lydecker stole a quick glance at Anastasia's daughter, he caught her staring into him, eyebrows tilted as if discerning something.

Anastasia had always been so good at that: discerning things from people's expressions, even micro-expressions people thought they'd masterfully hidden. Their mere turning away from her gaze had seemed to convey something, too, though. Like a kind of definition by absence, a negative space. But his head wasn't a crystal ball, and he wasn't sure if he wanted Alethea picking up on his thoughts, reading too far into his psyche, so he looked away. Anastasia had never pushed him too hard, and now neither did Alethea.

"You shouldn't feel guilty."

"I don't," he responded quickly, keeping his eye on the swells in front of him. Maybe Alethea hadn't honed that particular skill after all.

It was the harsh beating of the hull against the waves which provided the metronomic rhythm to their otherwise quiet, a pounding that echoed in his head as he tried to dispel her statement. If she thought he felt guilty, she was wrong.

Because how could she possibly know anything at all about him? She only knew his name because of Stadler, not because her mother spoke about him. She couldn't have without endangering her own life, or her children's. One curious mouse-click would have alerted Manticore, and immediately sharpened their crosshairs right on the woman and her offspring.

He creased his brows, angry at himself to have unknowingly put Anastasia in that position. She should have had a full life without having to worry about being assassinated by her former employer, or more likely, one of the X-Series soldiers belonging to her former employer. She shouldn't have had to change her name, make up a brand new life and give up her identity.

 _Goddamn, she was so smart,_ Lydecker thought. _She shouldn't have been my collateral damage_.

 _Just like Beth,_ he realized. Someone Alethea couldn't possibly know about, another woman whom had fallen victim to his involvement with the military and Manticore. Beth Prime had been his first wife. He'd married her right out of high school, before he'd enlisted in the Marine Corps. They'd only had a few months together as Mr. and Mrs. Lydecker prior to his deployment. A few years into his military career, he'd returned from a deployment to discover Beth had been murdered. Her homicide went unsolved, but the seemingly mysterious circumstances surrounding her death were not so mysterious to him. She'd been made a very personal, very public example. Her death was a direct consequence of his actions.

After the Pulse, Lydecker tried to make sure Beth's records were all sealed. It would have been better if they'd been destroyed, but he couldn't confirm that. He hadn't spoken of Beth since then, and avoided personal relationships thereafter as a kind of countermeasure against any more 'collateral damage.' Avoided them, that is, until Anastasia.

Lydecker squinted against the spray from the boat and tried to force those thoughts to the back of his mind. No, Alethea couldn't have known about Beth. He hadn't even told Anastasia about Beth.

Did she know about Tony? Maybe her mother had mentioned that Alethea had a brother. Even if Anastasia were to trust Alethea not to say anything, bringing up the son she had from a different father would definitely pique Alethea's curiosity. And if Alethea did know about him and thought Lydecker didn't, she wouldn't bring him up now. Knowing what she did about Dr. Adair's work and Lydecker's involvement in it, telling Lydecker about Tony would put them all in jeopardy. _So maybe she doesn't know about her own brother,_ he thought.

And it seemed for once in his life that Stadler hadn't betrayed him by mentioning Manticore, which meant Alethea didn't know about the things Manticore had him do, forced him into doing, after the Protocol's administration, Sandeman's disappearance and Renfro's appointment. The young brunette didn't know about the assassinations he performed, how he had trained the humanity right out of those kids, how ruthless he had been – had to be – in order to keep them alive. He had forgotten who he used to be, and nothing could ever make up for the atrocities they'd faced by his hand.

"You did all you could." Her words settled onto the water below them in an imbalanced dichotomy.

Had he done all he could to tear them down? Had he done all he could to keep them alive?

She kept her stony eyes forward in a solace he could neither understand, nor reciprocate.

Lydecker bowed his head and let her consolation hang in the dense air.


	8. Refraction

6 months ago

* * *

As Lydecker and Alethea headed down the wooden path of the harbor, Alethea couldn't help but notice the name of the vessel toward which they seemed to be walking. There would have been no point in trying to hide the vessel's name from her, especially if that's where he kept the text which needed translation. _The Anastasia_ was a beautiful boat, and she could tell by the way it gleamed with the water's reflection from the moonlight that he maintained the craft with care. She glanced at him from beneath long, dark lashes, grateful that her mother had someone in her life who loved her like he had. She could sense that depth.

What had her perplexed, though, was how vague he had been about this weird text Dr. Adair had worked so hard on translating before she was murdered. Dr. Adair had been tight-lipped about it too, apparently rightfully so considering what had happened to her. She again, belatedly wondered how Dr. Adair had been discovered, since she'd been so secretive about the program she'd been developing to read the language. She had entrusted Alethea with parts of it, instructed her never to let the program leave her office, for her to never talk about it with her friends or anyone else. Dr. Adair would ask for her opinion on a single marking, whether Alethea had any ideas about which way it faced, whether she thought it meant something particular or something suggested. Lydecker might not have been willing to risk bringing the text with him, but he seemed to trust her enough to bring her to it. But that was where the information stopped.

She wanted to ask Lydecker more, but he had been fairly quiet all the way back to the harbor. She'd forgotten how people cut themselves off from her when she perceived them, as if turning their gazes from her or turning their backs to her or closing their mouths would prevent her sensing their emotions, their truths, from feeling the way the tall waves of their guilt crashed into her as if she was its shore. When she perceived their truths, they felt emotionally naked, and they didn't like that feeling. It left Alethea isolated.

As _The Anastasia_ bobbed gently in the water, she fought the urge to philosophize into the space between the water's reflection on tiny crests and the depths below. There was a truth to be discovered, but it was masked by vast deception – by the way the surface was not a mirror to what was below, but a vision of the endless nature above, so easily captured in a shiny fragment of ocean.

Suddenly, the parallelism struck her, changing her expression from glassy-eyed sadness to mysterious deduction. Perhaps the markings were like the water's reflection. Just as The Anastasia was both a vessel and a person, she realized and vocalized, "The markings are not in a book."

Reaching the vessel, Lydecker climbed aboard and turned to hold a hand out to the young woman. She accepted and stepped onto the deck.

And naturally, he wouldn't have left something so valuable alone and vulnerable. There had to be another person on board with the person who had the text. "Do they know we're coming?"

His eyes danced across the dark water, a refracted sliver of light from the surface in the blue of his irises the only twinkling suggestion of a smile. "They heard us."

She nodded. Maybe a normal person's response would be one of confusion, but it was as if she'd gleaned his honesty in every statement.

She followed him down the stairs into the cabin, and though she could see in her periphery that there was a table with a map spread out on it, tiny multicolored paths jagging through it, it was the authoritative aura of the young man's presence that gave her pause.

He stood tall, protectively, his larger frame blocking most of the young brunette woman behind him. His arms folded across a broad chest, his stance firm and muscles tight. His jaw ticked expectantly, an echo of a raw heartbeat, but when she met his stare, the opaqueness dissipated. He exuded power, and she understood immediately. It wasn't until it had niggled up through her veins, searched the corners of her senses for the rightful egress before discovering her mouth, that she realized she'd said out loud the very word she hadn't been able to conjure. "Champion."

Alethea saw the flash of shock which smoothed the coarse hazel of his irises, but would not mention it. His mouth fell open and he took a breath, looking to Lydecker for verification, but the older man wore a matching expression.

"Max, Alec, this is Alethea Sarantis, Dr. Adair's protégé," Lydecker introduced.

Max's hand wrapped around Alec's bicep from behind and nudged him aside. She walked forward.

Alethea's blue-petaled brown eyes betrayed her own sense of marvel as she stepped forward gracefully and lifted Max's chin a fraction of an inch. They locked eyes a moment and Max relaxed under her touch. The younger woman swept Max's long hair behind her left shoulder and thumbed at the block of runes on her shoulder. "She Will Deliver," she said aloud.

Max turned to look at Alec, a silent question running between them of whether or not anyone had told her about this particular translation. Alec shrugged.

Alethea then pulled Max's forearm between them and turned the underside of her wrist up, rubbing the unmarred skin with her fingertips. "Are more missing?"

This time, Alec sensed Max's nervous panic. How this girl could possibly know that was beyond him.

"May I see the rest?" Alethea asked.

Max gave Lydecker an embarrassed look.

"We'll wait out here," Alec offered. He knew she would be uncomfortable showing anything more than was strictly necessary while Lydecker was in the same room.

Max led Alethea into the back bedroom, and Alec found himself grateful for the military training he'd had, since he didn't want Alethea to see the aftermath of his and Max's intimate coupling.

If Lydecker realized Alec's embarrassment, he didn't cut the X5 any slack. Looking toward the map, the colonel asked, "Did you and Max plan any new routes?"

"Uh," he started ineloquently. "We, uh, got distracted." In fact, just thinking about the distraction made him further distracted. He searched the map's roads and waterways without focus.

This time, the older man let the topic drop, but not without a shake of his head.

* * *

It was just under half an hour when Alethea completed what would soon become her initial examination of Max's runes. Their conversation was minimal as the lighter-eyed girl turned Max's arms over in gentle hands and her eyes traced over the runes as if they, too, needed to be handled like precious, fragile gemstones.

Still, Max hadn't felt as if she were under anyone's scientific microscope, and Alethea hadn't asked her to strip down to nothing – just to pull up her sleeves, pull the neck of her shirt away from her body – to only show her what Max felt comfortable revealing.

Which, she realized to her own credit, was quite a bit. Everything except what was covered by her underwear and bra. And to Alethea's credit, her focus blanketed Max, calming her. The girl obviously knew something about this language.

That knowledge was confirmed each time she ran across space where runes had been. "It's like half a letter," she'd said of the empty plains on Max's shoulder. "The puzzle is missing another piece," she'd said of the runes no longer on her wrist. "It is like a map without legend," she'd surmised.

Max was astounded that she'd known parts were missing, unsurprised when she'd asked if they knew why some sank back into her skin like invisible ink, and appreciative when she'd asked if Max or Alec could draw the missing runes, or the runes in more intimate places, rather than have Max show them to her.

Alethea excused herself to let Max get dressed, closing the door softly behind her.

Even with so much going on, and such a monumental battle on the horizon with other transgenics and transhumans and White, Max felt relatively at ease with Alethea in the room. It was as if someone had sent her to help them. She had no doubt that Alethea would be able to help them, but there was a strange déjà vu feeling creeping around in Max's head.

For starters, when she saw Alec, the very first thing she'd said – _champion –_ was just… right. Alec felt it, too, she was sure.

And her eyes… there was something so familiar about them. The gentility, kindness, carefulness, intelligence. The far-off look she'd get when she touched a few of the runes during the exam.

As Max pulled up, zipped and buttoned her jeans, her hands hesitated as her thoughts jumped wildly in another direction.

 _What if…_

Alec had basically freaked out (albeit mentally) once he'd said out loud that the condom had broken. She saw the slight upturn of the corners of his mouth as he roared inwardly that he was too well-endowed to be restrained by the latex. But then that confident, wild-eyed pride dissolved into something she'd only seen in him once before: fear borne of uncertainty. She saw it in the bunker, and she saw it here.

She witnessed the way his eyes darted around to nothing in particular, as if they were trying to figure out and solve the maze, and she wanted to reach out to him, capture his hand and put it on her skin, somewhere, anywhere. Remind him she was there, they were real, that they could do anything, even have a baby and raise a child. But before she could extend her hand, he jumped up out of bed and went to the bathroom.

Naturally, she followed him, the onset of a slew of thoughts plaguing her own mind.

Maybe Alec was scared to be someone's father. Maybe he didn't think he had the capacity to be a good one. He hadn't exactly had great examples of father figures growing up in Manticore – who did he have to choose from? Lydecker? Sandoval? Guards? Normal?

And hell, she hadn't had the greatest of parental figures either. With the single exception of Hannah, her experiences with mother-types was pretty abysmal.

Suddenly, she'd realized she wasn't sure she had the capacity to be a parent, herself. How could she protect an innocent little baby if she couldn't protect her unit, her friends, her fellow transgenics?

She saw her own runes in the mirror, mocking her. How could she be this 'one,' this 'bearer,' and also be a mother?

It was at that exact moment that Alec turned to face her, positioned himself between her and the mirror, blocking her panicked path, and gave her the comfort and confidence she needed. He told her he'd protect her, protect _them_. His entire being radiated his belief.

But then, last time, they hadn't even used a condom. They hadn't even thought about it. They'd made love, and it was perfect. If anything resulted from their lovemaking, it would be perfect, too.

She smiled to herself, palming her stomach, imagining a life blossoming inside her, getting bigger and bigger each month. Of course, she imagined her baby bump without the runes, but even if the runes were there... _Our baby._

A knock interrupted her reverie and she quickly pulled her shirt back on as Alec called from the other side of the door. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," she said, sitting on the bed to put her socks and boots back on.

Alec's bright eyes found hers and held them for a moment, offering his quiet if she wanted to talk. When she didn't offer up anything, he spoke. "So, Alethea tells us she thinks she'll be able to help."

Trying to cover up her blush from thinking about their possible future lovechild, Max looked down to tie the laces on her boot. "Yeah, I think so, too. Something is so familiar about her. Did you notice that she looks just like-"

"Tony?" Alec interrupted. "Yeah, except for the blue-"

"Gray," Max said at the same time.

"-And brown eyes," he finished.

Max thought for a moment of the portrait Joshua painted of Sandeman. The slate blue of his eyes, his calm expression and gentle nature. But plenty of people had slate blue in their eyes. And Alethea's outer iris was brown, where Sandeman had no brown at all. And plenty of people were calm and gentle. Like Joshua, for example. She shook the thought away and steered her mind back to how similar she and Tony appeared. "You think they're related?"

"It's possible," Alec trailed. "Tony is Lydecker's illegitimate son."

Max looked up. "He's _what_?" It nearly knocked her over with surprise that Lydecker had a son. Information like that would be on record somewhere, and this wasn't. _Guess that's the illegitimate part._

"Tony doesn't know that, though. Lydecker realized it when I went to get our IDs, recognized him, I guess, from having known Tony's mom, Anastasia Antonopoulos."

Max's stare widened as she realized the name of the boat they were on, and catalogued Alethea and Tony's similarities. Was Lydecker Alethea's father, too?

Alec nodded as if she'd just come to the same question. "Yeah, I know. I didn't think the guy had it in him. Let alone two."

Max made a face. She didn't want to think about anything Lydecker had in him. "Twins? Separated at birth to keep them safe? Or maybe Anastasia had a kid later with someone else."

"Which would mean Alethea is Tony's half-sister. Sister from another mister."

Standing, Max adjusted the sleeves of her shirt and hummed, thinking. "If Anastasia was Tony's mother, and Lydecker was Tony's father, then Anastasia and Lydecker would have had an affair while still employed at Manticore." Lydecker's life seemed to be Manticore, and once one became Manticore, there was only one way out.

"That's exactly what happened," Alec confirmed. "He didn't know Anastasia was pregnant or that she'd given birth to Tony. Says Anastasia disappeared, considered her missing until he figured Manticore had probably put her down, but never found any evidence to suggest otherwise."

"So Anastasia bounced, pregnant with their son, had the kid, and then, what? Gave him up for adoption?"

He wasn't sure. Tony had never really gone into his own history. Their relationship was based on business and monetary needs. "Probably," he settled, since Tony's last name was not Antonopoulos. Maybe Tony wasn't even really his first name.

"He didn't know she was pregnant, which means somehow, she was able to get out of Manticore unseen. That seems impossible."

"You did it," he pointed out as if it was some kind of proof.

Max grimaced. "Sort of. We broke out with the Pulse, and then you kind of help break me out the second time. I guess what I'm saying is, both times, I had help."

"Maybe Anastasia had help, then," Alec said. He'd just made her point for her. "But if it wasn't Lydecker, who was it?"

"And since Alethea couldn't be Lydecker's, then who is her father?"

"She doesn't know she has a half-brother, does she?"

"I don't think so. And Deck asked me not to tell her." He could see the wheels turning in her head.

It seemed like a terrible thing to Max not to let someone know they had a sibling, to deliberately withhold that information. She folded her arms over her chest, hope sparkling in her eyes.

Alec stepped forward, imploring with his eyes. "No, Maxie. We can't. He asked us not to."

Max narrowed her eyes at her lover and felt the ire boiling up through her being. "She has a brother, Alec. Don't you think they deserve to know each other? Don't you think they deserve to have a chance at a relationship?"

It aggravated him that she let her own history color the situation, when really, her family was nothing like Alethea's. Max loved her family, her unit, her brothers and sisters, sure. She grew up with them, to a degree, and they'd bonded over things children had no business bonding over. When she'd escaped, she found a new definition of family in the friends she made, sometimes, the people she helped. And all of those people who were lucky enough to be in Max's innermost circle understood the risks they took in knowing her secrets – that they might sometimes be put in danger – but they each made their choice.

And now, Alec and Max were already on enemy radar, as were any others they considered cohorts. As far as they knew, Alethea was a secret; Tony and Liv were secrets. No one knew about them, yet, and he wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. Keep them out of danger. Max reuniting the possible siblings would tie them to her, to him.

"If we tell them, aren't we painting a big ol' bullseye right on them? Alethea, Tony, and his live-in baby mama? Doesn't that put all of them in a greater danger? Dr. Adair was murdered for her attempt to translate a language written on your skin. She didn't even know it was on your skin, Max, but she chose to help Logan, to help us, and someone found her. Probably White. They made her pay for that." He took a deep breath. "I'm all for the reunion of family, but maybe we could wait just-"

"You're all for the reunion of family? Really?" A cocktail of sarcasm and anger was Max's preferred weapon of choice when someone questioned her intentions. "Where's yours, Alec?"

Alec looked down with frustration, nodding angrily. "That was a really shitty thing to say, Max."


End file.
